


The Unfinished Face

by mooglecharm (morphaileffect)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Blind Ignis Scientia, Drama, M/M, Mentioned Noctis Lucis Caelum, Mentioned Prompto Argentum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:06:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27535732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphaileffect/pseuds/mooglecharm
Summary: Ignis confides in Gladio that he got glasses at a young age, because he felt his face was incomplete.
Relationships: Gladiolus Amicitia/Ignis Scientia
Comments: 8
Kudos: 34
Collections: Gladnis Weekend 2020





	The Unfinished Face

**Author's Note:**

> For Day 1 of Gladnis Weekend 2020.
> 
> Prompt: "Trust me... please."

When Ignis was five years old, he refused to enter the palace’s employ without wearing a pair of glasses.

This was certainly a strange request. He was very young; his eyesight might not have been perfect, but it gave him no real trouble.

His reply came in two parts.

The first was simple, straightforward: “I want to see clearly.”

The second was more mysterious: “My face feels incomplete.”

The second answer would not have been acceptable, under any other circumstance. The Scientia family prized logic and reason and would have told him (had, in fact, told him, repeatedly) that it was an irrational request, that he did not _need_ glasses, and that at his age, glasses might be more of a hindrance than anything.

Perhaps he had seen someone wearing glasses at the Citadel, whom he wanted to emulate? But they couldn’t think of anyone who might fit the bill. Even when Ignis was small, medical technology in Lucis was advanced enough to fix most common eye problems. In short, not a lot of people wore eyeglasses in Insomnia.

But since the first answer satisfied his family, they decided to let the second answer slide. They took him to an optometrist, who fitted him with his first pair of glasses.

Ignis had never gone without glasses since then.

***

Gladio was the very first person he had ever told that story to.

And Gladio didn’t think it was such a strange story.

Growing up, Gladio confessed, he used to think his face looked weird, too - half-formed, like it was missing something.

His tried telling his father that as a joke, but he was brutally talked down; he was, quite simply, not allowed to say anything bad about the Amicitia face. Old photos told him that he looked a great deal like his dad did at his age, which sort of made matters worse.

It was never anything he could explain. His face just felt awkward - as if there was something that had to be there, but wasn’t yet.

“At first, I thought: maybe I’m just too generically pretty,” he quipped. “But it wasn’t that, exactly...and it wasn’t until I got the tattoo on my back that I understood.”

He always knew he was going to be a Shield to the next Lucian King. Was preparing for it. Had been ready for the role since birth.

But it was only when he got the eagle tattoo, the sacred symbol of the Shields of the Amicitia family, that he finally felt like things had fallen into place.

Like his skin was home.

“I don’t know if it was obvious to anyone else,” Gladio revealed, “how awkward my face and body felt like for me, growing up.”

“It wasn’t,” Ignis assured him, running his fingers lightly over the head of the eagle inked on Gladio’s left breast.

Gladio grunted.

“I guess I hid it well,” he casually remarked. “But that’s not all of it. Before I got the tats, I got the scar over my left eye, protecting Noct from that asshole at the bar.” He sighed wistfully at the memory. “And, apart from the eyepatch I had to wear for two weeks afterwards...it actually felt right. To have a scar on my face, finally. You know? It feels like I’ll have a million scars before all is said and done, but this scar over my eye is one that everyone can see. It’s like a step closer to what I’m supposed to be.”

Ignis hummed thoughtfully.

“Are you saying your scar and my glasses are the same thing?” he sleepily challenged.

Gladio held him a little bit more tightly.

“Maybe not,” he remarked. “I just like to imagine that I understand you, even a little bit.”

Ignis smiled mirthlessly, pressed his body closer against Gladio’s.

They spent the rest of their waking hours enjoying this peace, this shard of stolen heaven in Ignis’ apartment. In a few days, they would be leaving Insomnia, with the newly-betrothed Crown Prince and his best friend in tow.

Unbeknownst to them, it would be a long, long time before they could exclusively share the same sleeping space again.

***

Ignis woke to total darkness.

The first reaction would have been panic - except Gladio’s voice was there to ground him, Gladio’s voice was keeping him from flying off the rails.

“Ignis. Hey.”

And then Gladio’s hand was around his, steady and strong, there for him to hold on to.

“Gladio,” he said softly. “I can’t see you.”

He couldn’t see anything. He saw...bits of light and shadow, but little else. Trying so hard to see made his head hurt.

And through his pain, Gladio was babbling. He was answering very few of Ignis’ questions. He was intent on simply holding Ignis’ hands, telling him how the doctors in Altissia said there might be a chance he’d get his eyesight back. About how the damage to his face didn’t seem so bad.

About angels. Invisible, winged messengers of the gods, from the fantastic romances he so liked to read. About how he always thought they'd have eyes like this.

Gladio told him he was beautiful. That he was loved. That he was lucky. That he was going to be okay.

And his words felt empty. Through it all, Ignis felt damaged. Incomplete. _Useless_.

As soon as the doctors learned that Ignis was awake, they ushered Gladio and Prompto out of the room he was staying in, and began to detail recent events to Ignis more calmly.

In the most courteous, most couched words Ignis himself could think of, Altissia’s finest physicians said they couldn’t quite understand what had happened to Ignis, and therefore, they couldn’t figure out how to cure him.

It was as if his blindness had been caused _from the inside_ , from something that had burned so much of his optic nerves away and yet, had left him alive.

He might yet heal, they assured him.

At the same time, he might _not_ heal. And Ignis had to prepare himself for this.

So Ignis spent a few more days alone, in recovery, preparing.

He thought about needing to stay. About not going on any further. About trying to spare all of them more pain.

Every day, from his bed, he inquired after the state of Noctis, who didn’t seem to wake.

In this state, Ignis didn’t need to wear glasses. Certainly not ones with clear lenses.

Yet his hand kept going up to his face, pushing phantom frames up the bridge of his nose.

He had specifically said he wanted to be alone as he recovered from his wounds.

But some days later, Gladio returned.

Ignis was not in the mood to welcome him.

“I’ve got something for you,” Gladio said softly.

“I don’t want anything,” Ignis spat. “Don’t need anything.”

“Trust me...please.”

Ignis flinched when he felt Gladio approach. Smelled the familiar, comforting scent of his hair and skin.

Then, thin, light strips of cold metal touched his face.

When the spectacles were in place, Gladio pulled back.

“There,” Gladio said tentatively, in a small voice that seemed like it was getting ready to break.

Ignis wanted to rip the implement off. Wanted to throw it at Gladio. Out the nearest window. Anywhere, _away_.

And at the same time, he felt tears flowing down his cheeks, a sob welling up in the center of his chest.

Ignis wrapped his arms around himself, held himself tightly. Ignored how Gladio held on to his shoulders, pulled him into a warm embrace.

“Does that feel better?” Gladio asked.

But the last thing Ignis wanted to do, at that precise moment, was to admit that it did.

It did.


End file.
